Can I ask what you dislike about Asana?

I haven't used it. What's the biggest feature of Asana, and how is it flawed?

Oh, where to start!

So Asana is a todo list. Everything is a task. Tasks are assigned. Tasks can have subtasks. They can also have comments, tags and attachments. The top-level organizing construct is the project; projects have tasks and also team members. Oh, and within a project, tasks have order (something which doesn't really work in practice).

So far so good. Most of the problem with Asana is in the UI. Asana is all about lists. Unlike Trello, for example, Asana only has one view: A vertical list of tasks. This list UI is very much like a classic outliner or even text editor, in that there's almost always a cursor that's editing something. You can use the keyboard to navigate around. This leads to some immediate weaknesses: Since there's usually a cursor, typing something will typically have the text land in some random, unpredictable place. Hitting Enter creates an empty task. So if you're not super careful, your lists will be littered with errand characters and empty tasks.

This information-dense view means there is never a place to "rest". I can't keep a single task open. There's a split screen that allows you to maximize a task, but it's not quite the same. So in Asana, you never feel like you're in a specific location. It's always the list. It's easy to get lost because there's little or no sense of hiearchy, even though the data model is hiearchical. This UI is doubly problematic because Asana is a heavy single-page app (it takes several seconds for it to "boot") that doesn't lend itself to being opened up in multiple tabs. So it's not very web-app-like.

Really, this kind of editor-like "live" UI seems more appropriate for personal todo lists, but not for collaborative ones. In my mind, a task is a kind of mini project, and a task with subtasks is a bigger kind of mini project (usually you use these for multi-step tasks like launches or big features), but Asana treats them all with equal lightweightness. In fact, in your "My Tasks" view (also a list), Asana will comingle subtasks and top-level tasks, making it confusing because subtasks don't carry their context with them — so "My Tasks" will list something like "Add CNAME", which on its own makes no sense, until you click on it and see that it's a subtask of "superproduct.com launch".

There are lots of minor flaws. The editor is horrible — pasting and undo/redo tend to make the cursor lose its place, there's basically no support for pasting code (no syntax highlighting), the keyboard shortcuts are non-standard and weird (they use tab (!) instead of alt or ctrl as a modifier), and you can't turn off the stupid rich text mode (no Markdown). As mentioned, startup time is bad, and the main page loads as a POST, so if you restart the browser, the browser needs to ask if you "want to submit this form", which is bizarre.

The more I talk about, the less I like it. Unfortunately, so far I haven't found any alternatives that look good enough to migrate.

Is there a way to contact you?

sure but what do you want to discuss ?

Thank you for this. I hadn't realized there is a difference between downvoting and flagging comments until I read your post. I hope other HN users know of this difference.

A business model like Tsu's can kill Facebook.

Facebook keeps 100% of ad revenue; Tsu keeps 10% and pays 45% to it's users.

I liked the idea. There's also an enthusiasm coming out of it.

I got confused after trying it, because I kept thinking on the first screen that I was using it, while in fact I wasn't: I was supposed to be clicking on Next. I'm not sure what would be best, but I think I want to not go through the four screens that show me how to use it.

I wish the "Save" button was closer to "Add Item" so I don't have to move the mouse.

I liked how focused and simple this is.

It may look better if some sentences didn't break to a second line.

I wish I could pay per month. For me it's the principle, I want to try before I commit.

> "Poetry Every Day has the ability to keep track of which poem emails are opened."

Since you can't control how I read email, how does this work? Do I visit a web page to read the poem, or do I read it from my inbox?

Great points. Thanks for the feedback.

I ended up deciding on yearly pricing to keep processing costs down. Each charge is .30 + 2.9%, so it's cheaper for me if I only charge once a year. Monthly pricing is something I'm going to have to really consider. Or maybe a free month to get started. Thanks for the perspective.

My email provider (Mandrill) allows you to choose whether you want to track opens on each email you send. I'm guessing they use some sort of tracking pixel. So you still get the poems in your inbox, but they watch their servers for if that pixel was requested.

Have you talked to people in person?

Why did you build this?

I've spoken with several event planning pros in person, and quickly learned that they're not our target. We built this because we wanted to making finding the perfect venue for your event simple as possible, with software that is easy to use and nice to look at. The users that we're targeting are non-event planning pros - or average joes/janes who are looking for a venue for their bridal shower, baby shower, wedding etc... and would like to consider and reach out to several venues at once to find the right one for them. With venuevortex.com we are accomplishing that. Albeit, because the market is so broad it's difficult to work out a marketing strategy. Perhaps we can target each segment e.g. people who are looking for venues for their bridal shower, then wedding etc... but where do we find these people?

+1 to this, try talking to your potential users maybe?

I'm not a potential user but I clicked through to your Toronto listings and the pricing/other info on the page seems misleading and/or doesn't match what I'd expect to see when comparing venues. eg. Can I book this space for 2 people at the $35/pp price you list?? Obviously not.

edit: by the way, this seems like a potentially good idea. "AirBNB for venues" it's fairly obvious there is a market for this. But you probably need to do a better job of understanding that market.

The pricing is minimum price per person. In addition, I've spoken with and met folks who plan events often in the city and they love the product, albeit, the more higher end ones already have their networks and contacts at venues. So they suggested that I market this to the non-pro event planner that needs a venue for their bridal shower, baby shower, wedding, etc... Struggling with finding a marketing solution to target this group because it's particularly broad market segment.

> I just do not think anyone will pay as well as this bank

What makes you believe the best reward for you right now is to be paid as well as this bank, instead of improving your learning rate?

The road out of poverty passes through education. Internet is access to education.